Classroom mangament on friday in Brent's room

I am so glad that you and Brent work so closely together in terms of planning and teaching.  It makes for transitioning to other classrooms smoothly.  I am able to use the same discipline because it is what they know from all the switches.  Along with that, I am thankful for the Give me a T and Red Paw system at Bursley.  This makes management in other grades such as Spanish Immersion or Julies first and second graders.  The speaking softly and waiting till I have everyone has really increased their learning time as well as their focus.  They know that it is time to learn and while I am teaching it is under control.  I am struggling with transitions and getting them to focus at the beginning.  It is time to learn and not chat with friends or sit at the wrong seats.  When talking with classmates, it seems that a few others are struggling with this time as well.  In fact that is what some of them did on their Action Research project.  Any suggestions?

As far as those who are causing trouble, I am finally feeling that I am reigning them in.  It is not quite there but getting there.  I know that I still need to be firm in where I stand.

March 19

I was so impressed with the management yesterday.  I held my ground firmly and stuck the bar higher.  I felt this was easier to get the kids on task and keep the task.  Everything just seemed to flow better when the management was there.    Kids were more respectful towards each other and kids were more respectful to me.  The kids needed to see that I can set the bar high and hold the bar.   For instance, the going was not tolerated especially during bell work.  I feel they have been slacking with bringing their book to read after.  At first I felt mean, but I knew it was the right thing.  You have to have rules and structure.  I felt the rules and structure then allowed more students to open up personally and tell stories.  I was a bit surprised by this fact.  True capturing kids heart at play here.
Things that were difficult is because my bar is set higher now, trying to get all kids to that level right away.  Something that I noticed you did and worked on in the beginning.  I have tried to incorporate the reflective behavior question like what are you doing.  what are you suppose to be doing.  Were you doing it and not excepting any excuses.  This was a big idea in Ed Ford RTP.  I like how it gets kids accountable for their actions.  It seems that that pressure and questions reinforces the positive behavior expectations that was set. 

Students:  Chris and Tyler and Parker.  Tyler and Parker because they want to move seats and not be in the right seat.  Chris because of his constant standing. I am working with Parker and Tyler and just nipping in the butt those actions that are disruptive.  Chris is a bit more of a challenge.  I will continue to stand firm with Chris.

Classroom Management for 3/18

• What went especially well? I tried the voice turning down and watched my volume.  I know there was times that I still had my pool voice, but become aware of the fact and turned my volume down.  Tomorrow, I hope to utilize this awareness to my full advantage and keep talking softly so they can hear me.  
• What successes can be celebrated? During instruction time I held my standards with Zeth and a few others about when I say go then instructions.  Those that were not following the rules during vocab or getting the computer, had to wait till the end.  I used positive compliments on their behavior and saw some improvement in some of those kids who were complimented on their being ready.  Later, some of the students craved those compliments as well.  For instance in Social studies, I saw Andrew and Matthew ready for the movie with out having to remind them to quiet down.  Today, when I waited patiently, I also saw how kids waited patiently instead of yelling GUYS SETTLE DOWN.  This seemed to put me in control rather than the students.  
• What was difficult? Math was difficult.  I was trying to engage in conversations with everyone about their cylinders and the misbehavior and getting out of the seat.  I did not nip this in the butt fast enough.  ACT coming in late and both our students getting settled in as well as Mr. Huck's students asking me what they missed while I was giving instruction.  I felt this was not addressed well.  I wish that I had addressed this concern by saying  Let me finish my instruction, sit down and I will be with you in a moment.  Or even asked them in front of their peers what they were doing?  What I was doing?  Was this the best time to be asking this?  or something like this.  They may have felt the pressure of their pressure of their peers and realized it is not polite to be doing this.
• Which students are causing the most problems or needing the most redirection?  How can we support them?  This was addressed with the new seating chart.  Less redirecting occured today than other days.  Zeth is my big one, Tyler getting the eyes right away, and Hallee, Rylee, and Alexa to get focused on their work the whole time. 
• Do you see a change in your instructional time? I did notice that the time getting them back on task was slightly shorter, as well as less times trying to get Ts to redirect them.
• Do you see a change in student work ethic, work completion and/or responsibility? Not yet today.
• Are there aspects of classroom management that you'd like me to model for you again? 
• What more can I do to support you with classroom management?  How do you fill the voids of going between technology or if their is something you are looking for or reaching for you material.  That small little gap where there is a break of me talking for one second?  I feel the students always try to fill any break with chatter.

Parent Contact

In regard to parent contact, I will start off with addressing parent teacher conferences until I have a further prompt.  Parent teacher conferences seem very intimidating to me at this point in my career.  Your there with 15 minutes to tell them everything about their child both what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.  Except with the wrong, it seems so hard to sit there and tell them about their "innocent child" that they are doing something wrong.  Do you find it is easier to have parent teacher conferences with the child present?  How did you feel when you first had to do them?  Did you feel that it was not enough time? 

  What about phone calls?  Do we start with a positive on the phone as well before we get involved with misbehavior problems?  How often do you get parental calls or emails?  

Praise 2/26

I know you haven't posted the questions for me to think about, but I wanted to get a head start on answering this question.  One area that I reflected on about praise was related to getting kids on task.  I have been good about rewarding good behavior during bellwork, but I tend to neglect the good behavior through the rest of the day.  I am going to work as a goal to praise the table that is ready and doing things when they are suppose to during every subject.  I saw Joan do this with her clip up system and the younger grades as well as with green paws.  I think the group accountability and peer pressure is a healthy pressure to put on students.  I like the idea of scrabble cards, but that immediate gratification that the clip up or Paws or even candy like Julie has done, is a tangible reward that puts it immediate response to the situation rather than delayed with the whole group scrabble cards.  I am just torn because I know that internal praise and reward is better than external rewards, but sometimes that external reward is needed.

I will wait for more questions on praise and parental contact.

Professionalism 2/20

One of the aspects that you asked me to address is how professionals need to be mindful of having an outside life from school and separating school work from home.  I felt that last few weeks that I have been on my own has been difficult to actually separate those responsibilities.  The extras like planning and grading take up an abundance of time and emotion. I was so caught up in the lessons that didn't go so well  or how my classroom management has been affecting the learning of all students, that those feelings of failure began to consume me and induce unnecessary stress and anxiety both at home and in the classroom.When failed lesson do occur, I know I need to take time away to reflect on those mistakes and make changes so it wouldn't happen again.  I remember the teacher leader interview that I did with Amy, and she was saying that was one of the hard parts in her first years of teaching as well.  I knew this past weekend that I had to free my mind and escape in order to maintain a positive healthy state of being.

The second aspect of professionalism I would like to address is the being a friend and the boss at the same time.  I know it is important to maintain a fine line of friendship so they feel comfortable talking with you if they need it.  The friendship relationship with students also eases them in the classroom by lightening the atmosphere.  It shows them that you are supportive of their hopes and dreams.  At the same time, that friendship piece can allow students to take an advantage of you and the classroom expectations or behaviors.  Asserting the authority lets them know you are the adult capable of handling the situation and if punishment needs to happen, it will.  I found this piece was hard to do while we were at camp with the environment being more relaxed and sharing a cabin with 14 girls.

Professionalism 2-19

Today, I was mindful of my classroom management and how it effects the behavior of the kids and their learning.  I realize this fine line that if it is the whole class, that I wait for them until I have all set of eyes.  I need to stick to a bar and hold my kids accountable to reach this bar.  I feel that because I am not handing out Red paws or sticking to the bar, that I am being taken advantage of.  I truly believe they want to learn and they need structure and consistency.  I realized that the transition from lecture to independent work time does not flow and my expectations for this transition time is not completely clear and consistent.  With that, I continue to struggle with the management and talking out of turn or during independent work time.  I saw that sheet today and hope that this can help me keep track of those misbehavior creating expectations and an environment that is conducive to productive learning.

I realize that there is that fine line of when to have conversations with the teachers.  I tried to watch other teachers in this area.  Some I see as a quick conversation from the door way in one sentence and some it is a meaningful conversation after school.  Certain 1 sentence check ins or conversations, I feel is done mostly through the google chat.  But it is hard as a preservice teacher to have these conversations with others on the google chat. I feel the fine line between Google chat is that you don't want to come across as always being online during your student teaching which leads to face to face conversations that may be at the wrong time. I feel some of these conversations though naturally lead to suggestions or tips on how to present things.  I guess this comes across as intrusive on ones space and time.  In my observations, it seems best to just wait and come back later.